Hi Niels,

On Thu, Feb 22, 2024 at 07:32:21PM +0100, Niels Thykier wrote:
> When I am talking about package relationship substvars, I mean basically any
> substvar of the format ${*:<Field>} where Field is a relationship field such
> as Depends, Pre-Depends, etc.

[...]
> I think our package helper tooling should just automatically aggregate all
> provided substvars of the format ${*:Depends} and append it the Depends
> field. Rinse and repeat for other relationship fields.

> The list of fields where this is applied would be curated, so it only
> applies to known relationship fields where we feel it makes sense. My
> starting list would be:

>  * Any dependency field, that is: Pre-Depends, Depends, Recommends, and
>    Suggests

>  * The Provides field.

> I am omitting Breaks, Conflicts, and Replaces because I am not aware of any
> users of these at the moment. I am open to adding them, if there is a strong
> use-case.

One generic case that this doesn't handle is Essential: yes packages.  For
many of these, the ${shlibs:Depends} gets promoted in debian/control to
Pre-Depends, not to Depends.

Maybe it would make sense to auto-aggregate these substvars, *IFF* there is
not already a reference to the substvar in question in the package stanza in
debian/control?  This would provide adequate flexibility for any other
exceptions that might be out there, beyond the Pre-Depends case.

Cheers,
-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                   https://www.debian.org/
slanga...@ubuntu.com                                     vor...@debian.org

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